“It’s an honor to be among the first New York stages to present the music of composer Misato Mochizuki, whose expressive sonic creations transcend styles and borders. This full-evening showcase is a perfect platform for adventurous audiences to discover a fresh palette of new sounds and ideas. I’m also thrilled to continue our creative partnerships with exciting ensembles, including the incredible musicians of Yarn/Wire, who have championed Misato’s work in recent years, and the always-thrilling JACK Quartet.”

Shaped by studies in Tokyo and Paris, composer Misato Mochizuki’s music integrates Occidental tradition, the Asiatic connection to breath, and a fascination with ritual. Equally active in Japan and Europe, she has been featured at the Louvre and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. Mochizuki has just begun to make inroads in New York, and Miller is pleased to introduce her work more broadly through this Portrait, building on her relationship with local ensemble Yarn/Wire.

Born in 1969 in Tokyo, Misato Mochizuki is amongst those composers who are equally active in Europe and in Japan. After receiving a Masters degree in composition at the National University of Fine Arts and Music in Tokyo, she was awarded first prize for composition at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris in 1995, and then integrated the “Composition and Computer Music” program at IRCAM (1996-1997).

In her very own combination of Occidental tradition and the Asiatic sense of breathing, Misato Mochizuki’s style of writing developed magical rhythms and unusual sounds of great formal and stylistic freedom. Her catalogue of works (published by Breitkopf & Härtel) consists of about 40 works today, including 15 symphonic compositions and 12 pieces for ensemble. Her works, which have been performed at international festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, the Biennale di Venezia, and the Folle Journée in Tokyo, have received numerous awards; the audience prize at the Festival Ars Musica in Brussels for Chimera in 2002, the Japanese State Prize for the greatest young artistic talent in 2003, the Otaka Prize for the best symphonic world premiere in Japan in 2005 (for Cloud nine), the Grand Prize of the Tribune internationale des compositeurs in 2008 (for L’heure bleue), and the Heidelberg Women Artists’ Prize in 2010. Her most outstanding productions include the orchestral portrait concert at Suntory Hall in Tokyo (2007), the cinema concert at the Louvre with the music to the silent film Le fil blanc de la cascade by Kenji Mizoguchi (2007) and the portrait concert at the Festival d’Automne in Paris (2010).

Between 2011 and 2013 Misato Mochizuki was composer-in-residence at the Festival international de musique de Besançon. Since 2007 she has been professor of artistic disciplines at the Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo, and has been invited to give composition courses in Darmstadt, in Royaumont, in Takefu, at the Amsterdam Conservatory, and so on. Within the framework of her activities, she continually reflects on the role of the composer in today’s society and on the necessity to open oneself to it. In addition, Misato Mochizuki writes about music and culture in her own column every three months for the renowned Yomiuri Shimbun, the most widely read daily newspaper in Japan.

Yarn/Wire

Yarn/Wire is a New York-based percussion and piano quartet (Ian Antonio and Russell Greenberg, percussion / Laura Barger and Ning Yu, pianos). Yarn/Wire has commissioned many American and international composers including Rick Burkhardt, Raphaël Cendo, Alex Mincek, Thomas Meadowcroft, Misato Mochizuki, Tristan Murail, Kate Soper, and Øyvind Torvund. The group has given the United States premieres of works by Enno Poppe, Stefano Gervasoni, and Georg Friedrich Haas, among others. The ensemble enjoys collaborations with genre-bending artists such as Tristan Perich, David Bithell, and Pete Swanson. Yarn/Wire appears nationally at prominent festivals and venues including New York’s Miller Theatre, River-to-River Festival, La MaMa Theatre, and the Festival of New American Music. Their new and ongoing series, Yarn/Wire|Currents, serves as an incubator for new experimental music at ISSUE Project Room in Brooklyn, NY.